15 November 2019

HR policies: definition and implementation

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Table of contents

The HR policies are essential in order to attracting and retaining talent in a company, This will have an impact on both the quality of its employees and the overall profitability of the company in question. Because of this, it is very important to give them the attention they deserve, and above all to adapt them to the specific needs of each employee. 

What are HR policies?

Human resources policies are the set of strategies designed and carried out by the human resources department aimed at managing the entire working life cycle of the employees.. From elements such as their selection to their loyalty and motivation in the work environment.

In this way, it is a very varied set of strategies, since, depending on the employee and the circumstances for which they are intended, they will take one form or another. 

How important are they for the company

The main importance of HR policies lies in the fact that they are an important key element in attracting and retaining talent. In other words, they serve to build employee loyalty with the company and, consequently, preventing excessive turnover and counterproductive to business interests. 

On the other hand, the implementation of human resources policies goes beyond the individual employee loyalty.

In this sense, it is important to understand that they are a basic tool when it comes to creating a good working environment. This also has a direct impact on employees' work motivation and their efficiency at work.

In this way, HR policies are presented as a fundamental tool when it comes to improving the profitability that workers bring to the company. Consequently, they are also a fundamental tool for setting and increasing the profits of the company as a whole. 

How to implement human resources policies

The implementation of such policies is a task for the human resources department. Before doing so, it is advisable to carry out a prior study of the needs of employees, and which elements of the company require more attention from different points of view.

This will provide the information needed to adopt the most urgent policies and, above all, those that will have the greatest impact on workers as a whole. 

This implies that there is no single set of strategies that can be implemented in the form of HR policies. Rather, they will have to be adapted to each particular circumstance. However, in most cases, the most common ones tend to focus in one of the following directions:

  • Focused on personnel selection
  • Focused on remuneration of the employees
  • Aimed at social benefits of the employees
  • Focused on staff training
  • Focused on improving the work climate

Flexible Remuneration: employee value proposition

In this context, one of the strategies available within human resources policies to increase the remuneration of employees is the Flexible Compensation.

Flexible Remuneration is an option that allows you to part of workers' wages is converted into payment in kind, that they can spend on their personal needs (examples might include Transport Ticket, Ticket Restaurant o Childcare Ticket, among others). 

Flexible Remuneration has the characteristic that the part of the worker's salary that is converted into tickets is exempt from taxation. Thus, although the employee's basic salary does not increase, his or her purchasing power does.

This is because by using tickets as a form of payment instead of part of his regular salary, the worker does not lose the part of the purchasing power corresponding to the tax charges that would be due to that part of the salary received in the form of liquidity. 

In addition, thanks to the adaptability that Flexible Remuneration presents, In addition, it is up to each employee to choose how much of his or her salary he or she wants to convert into tickets and on which specific tickets he or she wants to use it.

In this way, workers' working conditions are improved without the need to directly increase their wages, which is an HR policy that benefits both the worker and the company.

Edenred Spain

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